One consequence of COVID-19 is that you no longer hear Democratic politicians talking much about how American workers love their job-based health coverage, or how working people should be free to choose their insurance options and “if you like your insurance, you can keep it.”

Since mid-March, more than 30 million people have applied for unemployment insurance. According to the AFL-CIO, at least 12 million of them lost their health coverage along with their jobs. They join some 30 million others who were uninsured even before the pandemic hit.

Leaving people to rely on their own resources to pay medical bills in the middle of a pandemic is a recipe for disaster, especially when they’ve also been left without income. For some time now, millions of Americans have been foregoing needed medical care because they had no way to pay for it. The pandemic has drastically increased their numbers, and the public health consequences are enormous. Untreated medical conditions leave people more vulnerable to infection, undermining efforts to control the spread of the virus. For those who do become infected and require hospitalization, the cost of care can run to the tens of thousands of dollars.